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Baragwanathia Longifolia
''Baragwanathia'' is a genus of extinct lycopsid plants of Late Silurian to Early Devonian age (), fossils of which have been found in Australia, Canada, China and Czechia. The name derives from William Baragwanath who discovered the first specimens of the type species, ''Baragwanathia longifolia'', at Thomson River (Victoria, Australia). Description ''Baragwanathia'' differed from such taxa as ''Asteroxylon'' by the presence of vascular tissue in its leaves—''Asteroxylon'' had enations without vascular tissue. The sporangia were borne in the axils of the leaves, which were spirally arranged. By comparison, the closely related genus ''Drepanophycus'' of the same period (see Drepanophycaceae for more details) bore its sporangia on the upper surface of specialized leaves known as sporophylls. ''Baragwanathia'' varied in size, with stems up to a few cm in diameter and up to a few metres in length. They were erect or arched, dichotomized (forked) occasionally, and had adventit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silurian
The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleozoic Era. As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the exact dates are uncertain by a few million years. The base of the Silurian is set at a series of major Ordovician–Silurian extinction events when up to 60% of marine genera were wiped out. One important event in this period was the initial establishment of terrestrial life in what is known as the Silurian-Devonian Terrestrial Revolution: vascular plants emerged from more primitive land plants, dikaryan fungi started expanding and diversifying along with glomeromycotan fungi, and three groups of arthropods (myriapods, arachnids and hexapods) became fully terrestrialized. A significant evolutionary milestone during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tracheid
A tracheid is a long and tapered lignified cell in the xylem of vascular plants. It is a type of conductive cell called a tracheary element. Angiosperms use another type of tracheary element, called vessel elements, to transport water through the xylem. The main functions of tracheid cells are to transport water and inorganic salts, and to provide structural support for trees. There are often pits on the cell walls of tracheids, which allows for water flow between cells. Tracheids are dead at functional maturity and do not have a protoplast. The wood (softwood) of gymnosperms such as pines and other conifers is mainly composed of tracheids. Tracheids are also the main conductive cells in the primary xylem of ferns. The tracheid was first named after the German botanist Carl Gustav Sanio in 1863, from the German ''Tracheide''. Evolution Tracheids were the main conductive cells found in early vascular plants. In the first 140-150 million years of vascular plant evolution, tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yea Flora Fossil Site
The Yea Flora Fossil Site is a roadside cutting on Limestone Road, Yea, Victoria, Australia. It contains fossils of genus Baragwanathia, some of the world's earliest vascular plants dating back to the begin of the Devonian period, 415 million years ago. The fossils were discovered in 1875, but the significance was not recognized until they were studied in the 1930s by Australian botanist Isabel Cookson. Her work overturned long held scientific understandings of how and when plants evolved. The site is listed on the Australian National Heritage List. See also * List of fossil sites This list of fossil sites is a worldwide list of localities known well for the presence of fossils. Some entries in this list are notable for a single, unique find, while others are notable for the large number of fossils found there. Many of t ... References Australian National Heritage List Paleozoic paleontological sites of Australia Silurian paleontological sites Silurian Austr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graptolite
Graptolites are a group of colonial animals, members of the subclass Graptolithina within the class Pterobranchia. These filter-feeding Filter feeders are a sub-group of suspension feeding animals that feed by straining suspended matter and food particles from water, typically by passing the water over a specialized filtering structure. Some animals that use this method of feedin ... organisms are known chiefly from fossils found from the Middle Cambrian (Miaolingian, Wuliuan) through the Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian (geology), Mississippian). A possible early graptolite, ''Chaunograptus'', is known from the Middle Cambrian. Recent analyses have favored the idea that the living pterobranch ''Rhabdopleura'' represents an extant graptolite which diverged from the rest of the group in the Cambrian. Fossil graptolites and ''Rhabdopleura'' share a colony structure of interconnected zooids housed in organic tubes (theca) which have a basic structure of stacked half-rings (fuse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conodont
Conodonts (Greek ''kōnos'', "cone", + ''odont'', "tooth") are an extinct group of agnathan (jawless) vertebrates resembling eels, classified in the class Conodonta. For many years, they were known only from their tooth-like oral elements, which are usually found in isolation and are now called conodont elements. Knowledge about soft tissues remains limited. They existed in the world's oceans for over 300 million years, from the Cambrian to the beginning of the Jurassic. Conodont elements are widely used as index fossils, fossils used to define and identify geological periods. The animals are also called Conodontophora (conodont bearers) to avoid ambiguity. Discovery and understanding of conodonts The teeth-like fossils of the conodont were first discovered by Heinz Christian Pander and the results published in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1856. The name ''pander'' is commonly used in scientific names of conodonts. It was only in the early 1980s that the first fossil evidence of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria, Australia
Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state in Australia (28 per km2). Victoria is bordered by New South Wales to the north and South Australia to the west, and is bounded by the Bass Strait to the south (with the exception of a small land border with Tasmania located along Boundary Islet), the Great Australian Bight portion of the Southern Ocean to the southwest, and the Tasman Sea (a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean) to the southeast. The state encompasses a range of climates and geographical features from its temperate coastal and central regions to the Victorian Alps in the northeast and the semi-arid north-west. The majority of the Victorian population is concentrated in the central-south area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, and in particular within the metropolitan area ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludlovian
The Ludlow Group are geologic formations deposited during the Ludlow epoch of the Silurian period in the British Isles, in areas of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Formations This group contains the following formations in descending order: # Tilestones Formation, Downton Castle Sandstone formation (90 ft./27.7 m), # Ledbury Formation shales 270 ft./83 m), # Upper Ludlow sub-group formation (140 ft./43 m), # Aymestry Limestone Formation (up to 40 ft./12.3 m), # Lower Ludlow sub-group formation (350 to 780 ft./108 m-240 m). Geology The Ludlow group is essentially shaly in character, except towards the top, where the beds become more sandy and pass gradually into the Old Red Sandstone. The Aymestry limestone, which is irregular in thickness, is sometimes absent, and where the underlying Wenlock limestones are absent the shales of the Ludlow group graduate, downwards into the Wenlock shales. In Wales the group is typically developed between n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monograptus
''Monograptus'' is a genus of graptolites in the Order Graptoloidea. This particular genus is the last stage of the graptoloid evolution before its extinction in the early Devonian. A characteristic of the genus includes one uniserial stipes with very elaborate thecae. This particular genus contains large number of graptolite species and may not be monophyletic. Biostratigraphic significance The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) has assigned the First Appearance Datum (FAD) of ''Monograptus uniformis'' as the defining biological marker for the start of the Lochkovian, 419.2 ± 3.2 million years ago, the earliest stage of the Devonian. page 5. Retrieved 2015-06-16. ICS has assigned the FAD of ''Monograptus parultimus'' defining biological marker for the start of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graptolithinia
Graptolites are a group of colonial animals, members of the subclass Graptolithina within the class Pterobranchia. These filter-feeding organisms are known chiefly from fossils found from the Middle Cambrian (Miaolingian, Wuliuan) through the Lower Carboniferous ( Mississippian). A possible early graptolite, ''Chaunograptus'', is known from the Middle Cambrian. Recent analyses have favored the idea that the living pterobranch ''Rhabdopleura'' represents an extant graptolite which diverged from the rest of the group in the Cambrian. Fossil graptolites and ''Rhabdopleura'' share a colony structure of interconnected zooids housed in organic tubes (theca) which have a basic structure of stacked half-rings (fuselli). Most extinct graptolites belong to two major orders: the bush-like sessile Dendroidea and the planktonic, free-floating Graptoloidea. These orders most likely evolved from encrusting pterobranchs similar to ''Rhabdopleura''. Due to their widespread abundance, plantkonic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brachiopod
Brachiopods (), phylum Brachiopoda, are a phylum of trochozoan animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear end, while the front can be opened for feeding or closed for protection. Two major categories are traditionally recognized, articulate and inarticulate brachiopods. The word "articulate" is used to describe the tooth-and-groove structures of the valve-hinge which is present in the articulate group, and absent from the inarticulate group. This is the leading diagnostic skeletal feature, by which the two main groups can be readily distinguished as fossils. Articulate brachiopods have toothed hinges and simple, vertically-oriented opening and closing muscles. Conversely, inarticulate brachiopods have weak, untoothed hinges and a more complex system of vertical and oblique (diagonal) muscles used to keep the two valves aligned. In many brachiopods, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bryozoa
Bryozoa (also known as the Polyzoa, Ectoprocta or commonly as moss animals) are a phylum of simple, aquatic invertebrate animals, nearly all living in sedentary colonies. Typically about long, they have a special feeding structure called a lophophore, a "crown" of tentacles used for filter feeding. Most marine bryozoans live in tropical waters, but a few are found in oceanic trenches and polar waters. The bryozoans are classified as the marine bryozoans (Stenolaemata), freshwater bryozoans (Phylactolaemata), and mostly-marine bryozoans (Gymnolaemata), a few members of which prefer brackish water. 5,869living species are known. At least two genera are solitary (''Aethozooides'' and ''Monobryozoon''); the rest are colonial. The terms Polyzoa and Bryozoa were introduced in 1830 and 1831, respectively. Soon after it was named, another group of animals was discovered whose filtering mechanism looked similar, so it was included in Bryozoa until 1869, when the two groups were no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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